Machinery for manufacturing- hat-bodies



STATES; PATENT OFFIOE.

JOSEPH BOOTH, OF NEWARK, NEW JERSEY.

MACHINERY FOR MANUFACTURING 'HAT-BODIES.

Specification of Letters Patent No. 18,034, dated August 25, 1857.

To all whom t may concern:

Be it known that I, JOSEPH Boo'rH, of Newark, in the county of Essex and State of New Jersey, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Machinery for Manufacturing Hat-Bodies; and I do hereby declare -that the following is a full,`clear, and exact description of my said improvement, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, in which- Figure 1 represents a side elevation of my improved bowing machine, Fig. 2 represents a plan of the same, Fig. 3 a longitudinal section, and Fig. 4 a plan of the hurdledrum orpan-case with the hurdle removed.

In the manufacture of hat-bodies by hand it is customary, by an operation termed bowing, to cause a quantity of fur fibers to deposit upon-the work table or .hurdle in the form of a triangular sheet having curved sides, andtwo such masses of fibers, or bats, are afterward united to form a conical hat body. As the bowing of the fur is a manual operation that requires great skill and long practice in the operator to render it successful, and as it always occupies a considerable space of time, the method of manufacturing hat bodies by hand is a very eX- pensive process when compared with the method now generally employed of forming conical hat bodies entirely by machinery. The hand method of manufacture is however still employed with advantage in making the finer qualities of hat bodies, the material of which is injured by the processes to which the fur is generally subjected in manufacturing hat bodies by machinery; and hence it has long been desirable to devise some means by which the hand manufacture could be cheapened. This object has been attained to a greater or less extent by the introduction of machines which effect the automatic bowing of the fur fibers, and my improvement relates to-this class of machines, its object being to simplify and improve their construction, and to furnish means whereby the bats of fur fibers may be formed of a proper thickness at their different parts in accordance withvthe requirements of the hatter.

In the hand operation of bowing the mass of fur upon which the hatter acts is thoroughly disintegrated, and the bers are disseminated infthe air by the action of the hatters bow; the disseminated iibers as they fall 'collect upon the hurdle or hurl,

in bats or fiat sheets lready for the subse-` quent operation of uniting two together to form a conical hat body. In my machine which is represented in the accompanying drawings the dissemination of the fur fibers is effected by a double picker, similar to the well known blowing machine for preparing fur for hatters use.. This picker has `two parallel picking cylinders, A-and B, supported at a short distance from each other upon a stout frame,` C. Each picking cylinder is studded with teeth to act upon the fur fibers, and each is preceded by a pair of feed rollers, e e', z' e", whose office is to `seize the fur and present it to the picking cylinders. Each pair of feed rollers is preceded by a feed-apron, D and F, which conduct the fur to the feed rollers. The feedapron D of the first pair of feed rollers is exposed to the air, and receives the fur directly from the hand of the attendant, who distributes it upon the feed apron. The part of the machine which extends from the first pair of feed rollers to the second pair is covered with a case, Gr, which prevents the fur fibers thrown out by the first picking cylinder from escaping, and causes them to collect upon the second feed apron F, by which they are conveyed to the second pair of feed rollers, z', e, which presents them to the second picking cylinder B. The top of the case G is formed of wire cloth which retains the fur fibers but permits the escape of the current of air which is propagated by the centrifugal action of the first picker. A space h, is left between the first picking cylinder and the second feed apron. This space permits the dirt and hair which may be mingled with the fur, and which are heavier than it, to drop into a receptacle or bin I beneath, while the lighter particles of fur are wafted across the space by the current of air, and are borne against the front j of the case, when they fall and lodge upon the second feed apron beneath. The inner side of the front of the case is not Vertical,

but is inclined backward, as shown in Fig. 3, and this inclination of the front of the case is a mattei' of importance, as it insures the equable deposit of the fur upon the feed apron in a continuous layer, and conse. quently causes the fur to be fed equably to t-he second picking cylinder. This equable feeding of this cylinder is advantageous, because when it is thus fed the picked fur passes from'the picking apparatus in a uniform current, and deposits it-selfvupon the hurdle in a proper manner.

The hurdle K, upon which the disseminated fur fibers thrown off by the second picking cylinder are collected, is situated beyond this cylinder and nearer the floor of the apartment in which the machine is placed; lt consists of a circular fiat table, whose top is formed of wire gauze or other suitable material, and which is supported on the upper end of a revolving spindle Z. The surface of the hurdle divided into two symmetrical parts by a piece of thin leather m, or other suitable material which is secured to the wire gauze. The latter is strained upon a circular ring a, which is crossed by a bridge tree a, having a socketin its lower side .to receive the upper eX- trelnity of the vertical spindle Z the latter supports the hurdle and imparts motion to it by means of a driver which is secured yto the spindle and bears against the edges of a gain cut in the lower side of the bridge tree fZ.

The ring a is surrounded by a rim of metal 0, which extends downward far enough to envelop the upper end of a cylindrical case H, in which an exhausting fan J is contained. The exhausting fan is composed of an upper annular head (Z, and of a lower solid head f, connected by a series of radial vanes g; it is mounted upon a hollow spindle Za, which revolves upon the vertical spindle of the hurdle, so that the two are concentric, which mode of construction insures an equable draft of air through correspending concentric portions of the hurdle. The fan is sufficiently smaller than its fan case to leave an annular chamber 7) bet-ween the two, in which the air from the vanes is V discharged, and from which it escapes through a pipe g provided for the purpose.

Motion is imparted to the various moving parts of the machine from a driving shaft L, situated beneath the floor upon which the machine is placed. The first pair of feed rollers are driven from this driving shaft by means of a belt r which imparts motion to a pulley s, secured to the shaft of the upper feed roller. Two other pulleys t, u are secured to this feed roller shaft; from one of them Z a belt is carried to a pulley t', upon the shaft of the upper feed roller of the second pair; and from the other pulley, u, a belt is carried to a pulley u,secured to the revolving hurdle.

second feed apron is driven from the first one.- The lower feed roller of each pair is driven from the upper one by means of pinions secured to their respective shafts.'

The two picking cylinders A and B are caused to rotate rapidlyV by belts to, w, leading from large pulleys, V and V, upon a counter shaft W; and the latter is driven'by the driving shaft by means of a belt which encirclos pulleys, ac and rc', secured to the re-A spective shafts. Motion is imparted to the fan by means of a belt g/ which encircles a pulley e secured to the tubular shaft of the fan and a similar pulley s secured to an upright counter shaft E; the latter is driven by the driving shaft L by means of a belt m and pulleys X and X. counter shaft also imparts motion to the spindle Z of the hurdle by means of a belt n and pulleys. The relative dimensions of the pulleys upon the upright counter shaft E, the spindle of the hurdle, and the t-ubular shaft of the fan, are such that the fan is caused to revolve with great speed while the hurdle turns slowly.

When the machine is in operation a weighed quantity of fur, sufficient to form two bats is distributed evenly upon the first feed apron D by the attendant. This fur is conveyed by the movement of the feedapron to the first pair of feed rollers, by which it is seized and presented to the teeth of the first picking cylinder A. By the rapid revolution of these teeth the fur is picked or opened and its fibers thrown upward into the case G; the dirt and hair which may be mixed with the fur, being heavier than the latter, fall nearest the cylinder, and pass through the space Zzy into the receptacle I beneath while the particles of fur striking the inclined front of the case, fall and accumulate evenly upon the feed apron, and are conveyed by it to the second pair of feed rollers. These latter present it to the second picking cylinder B, whose teeth in its rapid rotation pick the fibers a second time and throw them forward over As currents of air set toward this perforated top of the hurdle to pass through it and supply the fan beneath, the picked fibers of fur which are thrown off by the second picking cylinders, and which tend to drop bytheir gravity, are borne down by the currents in the form of a shower upon the perforated top of the hurdle and'accumulates thereupon in sheets of fibers or bats. The rotation of the hurdle insures the even rdeposit of fur fibers soV The upright l concentrically, and the position of the hurdle with respect to the picking apparatus is such that, as the bers fall, a larger number tend to accumulate near the centre of the hurdle than at its circumference; and as the surface exposed to the shower of fur fibers is greater near the circumference of the circular hurdle than near its center there is a progressive thickening of the deposit from the circumference toward the center of the hurdle. This thickening of the deposit toward the center o-f the hurdle is enhanced by the natural tendency of the currents of air to set most strongly toward the eye of the fan or opening in its upper head. Hence the bats produced are thicker toward their adjacent edges, as they should be, as in uniting the bats these edges form the brim of the hat body. When the weighed quantity of fur has passed through the picking apparat-us and has accumulated upon the hurdle, the latter is lifted from its spindle and is carried to a hardening table; here a hardening board is laid upon the bats and the whole is reversed upon the hardening table so as to bring the hurdle uppermost; the hurdle is then lifted 0E and replaced on the machine to receive a fresh charge of fur as before. The bats upon the hardening vtable, may be hardened and united together to form a hat body in the usual manner, or they may be subjected to the action of any suitable machinery by which the amount of hand labor may be lessened. I have found it advantageous to harden them sufficiently to enable them to be handled by laying hardening boards upon them and communicating a slight tremulous motion to the boards.

By the employment of the machine I have described the fur fibers are thoroughly disintegrated and are deposited upon the hurdle, and the machine may be termed with propriety a bowing machine as it does the work of the hatters bow. Its parts are not necessarily limited to the precise construction and arrangement which I have described but may be varied as circumstances require. Thus for example, the method of communicating motion to the feed apron feed rollers and other moving parts of the machine may be varied. The same hurdle may also be employed to form ,any required direction.

bats of different sizes and forms by partially covering its surface with pieces of leather or other material so as to confine the deposit of fur to portions of the perforated surface of the forms and dimensions ofthe bats to be produced. This covering of the surface may be eected by applying the covering material on either the lower or upper side of the hurdle; or it may be eected by extending the wooden rim farther inward, and by making the opening in it of the shape of the bat to be produced. If the upper surface of the rim is level, so as to bear against the wire gauze, the bat will correspond in size and form with the opening in the rim but if the upper surface be beveled olf, as shown at n in Fig. 3, the edges of the bat will extend over these beveled portions, and the bats will be thinner at these parts of the gauze as the draft will be weakened by the position of the rim beneath. If desired a blast of air may be introduced into the space between the inner side of the front of the case G and t-he exterior thereof, and adjustable adjustages or nozzles may be adapted to the latter so as to permit the air to pass out in jets against the current of fur fibers thrown off by the second picking cylinder to give the current The blast of air required for this purpose may be obtained from a separate fan or may be taken from the exhausting fan by means of a pipe leading from its annular air chamber.

What I claim as my invention and desire to secure by Letters Patent isl. The rotating Hat hurdle having its perforated surface divided substantially as herein set forth in combination with a picking or bowing apparatus and air exhausting apparatus the whole constructed and operating substantially as herein set forth.

2. I also claim the arrangement of the fan shaft upon the spindle of the revolving hurdle substantially in the manner and for the purpose herein set forth.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto subscribed my name.

JOSEPH BOOTH.

Vitnesses:

H. S. LINCOLN, E. T. REMRIGK. 

